Running head: TEACHING DAIRY SAFETY

Teaching Dairy Safety to Agriculture Employees IDD Michelle K. Stuyt California State University Monterey Bay

IST526 Interactive Multimedia Instruction Professor Lara and Challenger April 8, 2014

TEACHING DAIRY SAFETY

PROBLEM ANALYSIS
My proposal for an individual instructional design project topic is to teach dairy safety to employees in the agriculture industry. The dairy industry is a business enterprise which is commonly known for the production of cow milk for human consumption. This industry incorporates a series of additional tasks, including, but not limited to, feeding the cows and calves, maintaining the land, driving equipment, and most importantly maintaining personal safety. Considering the variety of tasks associated within this industry, personal safety has become an area which should require more attention from the employer. Reviewing common safety concerns and procedures, and creating an instructional program to address these concerns is beneficial to both the stakeholder, which is the employer, as well as the target audience which is the employees. Currently, there is a performance gap for dairy employees who are not familiar with agriculture safety concerns related to the dairy industry. This performance gap is calculated based on the performance at the Stuyt Dairy, located in Escalon, California, as well as surrounding dairies within 25 miles. With the influx of new employees, the dairy industry faces new safety issues daily. Employees in the dairy industry are working long hours, at a fast pace, and under difficult social and environmental conditions and this is an ever changing industry where the health and safety of employees is concerning. Agriculture safety is an important step in addressing those concerns and maintaining personal health and longevity. According to the Farmer Today online magazine, Dairy farming is among the mosthazardous occupations with high rates of injury, illness, and employee turnover (Dairy Industry Safety Examined, 2013). In my 24 years of being involved with the dairy industry, our dairy alone has gone through approximately one plus employees per year. In one year alone, our dairy

TEACHING DAIRY SAFETY had gone through ten employees because the prospective employees were not retaining the

training information and making safe, responsible decisions throughout the work day. These poor decisions unfortunately led to emergency room visits, co-worker frustration, and lack of productivity. There have been several attempts to make dairy safety a more commonly discussed topic. For example, our dairy receives bi-monthly newsletters in the mail from AgWeb reaching out to employers to discuss tailgate topics. Tailgate topics are common concerns several dairymen are facing. The newsletter provides dairymen with conversation starters, statistics, and preventative measures to help alleviate the risk of injury. This project has been designed to address those specific concerns and issues in an effort to reduce the number of agriculture-related accidents. The ultimate goal with this topic is to teach dairy employees in the Central Valley the importance of agriculture safety as well as areas that require the most attention to detail.

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TARGET AUDIENCE
To achieve the desired outcome, a skills analysis has been created for potential users. Learners should be agriculture literate and understand the basics of daily procedures and primary safety concerns. Users should also familiarize themselves with terminology relating to the dairy industry. Having more experience and knowledge within the dairy industry makes comprehending the purpose of a safety training program easier to master. A general understanding of the environment, terminology, equipment, and animals is valuable because the more that is known, the less research that will need to be done at a later date. In essence, the more the learner knows, the more beneficial the training will be in its entirety. Learners are entering the training with several skills already acquired. Identifiable entry behaviors include literacy, intellectual, verbal, and problem solving. Literacy is the ability to read instruction and apply what they have read to the task they are about to endure. For example, if he or she reads instruction that states you must wear safety goggles, they must understand this request is mandatory. Intellectual skill is having the common knowledge of what needs to be done, and proactively learning by doing to achieve the desired outcome. For example, the employer should not have to repeat common knowledge instruction more than twice after reviewing the instructional training. Verbal skills can best be defined as retaining information and proactively demonstrating what he or she has just heard. Finally, problem solving is developing an understanding when something is not working the way one had desired, and finding a resolution to the problem independently. The most important basic entry skills a learner must possess is the basic knowledge of the dairy industry. Furthermore, learners should have an established comfort around this

TEACHING DAIRY SAFETY environment. Additional skillsets that would be beneficial include understanding how to act around animals and large equipment. The learner should have some experience in this field;

therefore, having a general understanding of terminology is expected. The final group of skillsets a learner should have includes basic reading, writing, and mathematics knowledge. The combinations of the entry behaviors identified will make learning dairy safety obtainable for all. Learners could vary in age from young adults in high school, minimum age of 18, to mature grown adults. Based upon the employees on The Stuyt Dairy, and surrounding dairies, the target audience is primarily Hispanic adults from the age range of 24-30. Most employees come into the dairy industry with some type of prior dairy experience. This is highly beneficial because they then have a general understanding of the different types of equipment, terminology, and daily work requirements. The training then can focus more of the safety related to these different fields as opposed to training them to what everything is. The age range is set higher because employees are now returning from college or a break from school and have more flexibility. Furthermore, it is a commonality in the dairy industry that employers provide their employees with housing in exchange for compensation; therefore, this field attracts older individuals with families.

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LEARNING OBJECTIVES
There are several considerations which should be taken into account in terms of design. Such considerations include the testing, assessments, organizational strategies and instruction. There are three different types of testing that will be conducted including affective, cognitive, and psychomotor testing. The affective domain is the manner in which we deal with things emotionally, such as feelings, values, appreciation, enthusiasms, motivations, and attitudes. Cognitive tests assess the intellectual capabilities, or the learning ability the learner has acquired throughout the presentation. Meanwhile the psychomotor testing focuses on the mental recollection of what was introduced to the learner (Farlex Inc., 2013). The goals and instructional objectives may include the following: 1. Using the information presented in the dairy safety training presentation, learners must identify the signs of aggression from bulls. 2. Using the information presented in the dairy safety training presentation, learners must understand what blind spots are when driving equipment, in addition to learning the blind spot locations. 3. Using the information presented in the dairy safety training presentation, learners must identify the different locations for administering shots and how to safely reach those areas. 4. Using the information presented in the dairy safety training presentation, learners must understand what it means to treat the hospital cows and to take the necessary precautions to avoid cross contamination between the animals and themselves. 5. Using the information presented in the dairy safety training presentation, learners must demonstrate how to clean the barn properly to avoid slips, trips, and falls.

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ASSESSMENT INSTRUMENTS
Evaluations will be conducted electronically two times throughout the process to ensure the program is purposeful. The various evaluations will initiate pre-instruction and conclude post-instruction. The evaluations will incorporate questions in regards to the learners overall experience. This would not only include the content, but also incorporate questions in regards to the delivery of material, instructional presentation, and amount of time to learn content. An evaluation gives the instructional designer the opportunity to either revise the information to make the consequences more apparent, or perhaps it would generate new ideas or an additional section to be added to showcase a different area of safety that needs to be addressed. In essence, the results received provide the designer the opportunity to make the material more effective to benefit a larger audience. The most appropriate form of summative evaluation is a questionnaire that will be submitted to only the employer after a one month waiting period. Considering the employer is the primary individual who is assessing the employees performance, the most value would be retrieved from an evaluation sent to him or her. The responses will be recorded and assessed. If a follow up presentation was seen as necessary, the instructional designer would develop short training to address the concerns noted by the employer. If the evaluation came back with no concerns, the training would be complete. Sample assessment items would include answering questions specific to the learning objectives. Assessment questions may include the following: 1. Examples of a bull displaying aggression may include ______________, ______________, and ______________. Fill-In-The-Blank 2. What is a blind spot? Short Answer

TEACHING DAIRY SAFETY 3. The various ways to administer shots are in the muscle, under the skin, and in the vein and all can be reached from either the front or back of the animal? T / F True or False 4. List the steps to avoid cross contamination. Short Answer 5. How often should the barn be cleaned: (a) daily; (b) only when the boss it watching; (c) all of the above; (d) none of the above. Multiple Choice

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INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES
The instructional strategy I plan to apply is the coherence principle. There were several positive results for eliminating extraneous materials which I feel will have a positive impact on the overall deliverable. Furthermore, I feel the coherence principle will be more impactful to my instruction because the training will be in an authentic learning environment. Included in the instructional strategy, coherence, I plan to incorporate signaling, and educational games and simulations. Signaling includes using text enhancements such as headings, bold, italics, capital letters, and color to draw the learners attention to specific parts of the page. In summary, the coherence principle was designed to make the lesson anything but boring. The largest challenge in pursuing this strategy is to stimulate interest without adding extraneous material that distracts from the cognitive objective of the lesson.

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INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS
The development of the training program includes a variety of sources requiring consideration before the material can be presented to learners. Such sources include materials, timeline, cost, and process. The materials reference what is necessary to producing a training program for the dairy industry. The primary design of the training will be computer-based instruction. The instructor would deliver the information in an office setting to provide an atmosphere conducive to learning. The instructor will present the information via Adobe Captivate 7 to his or her audience. Included in the instructional presentation will be images, media, and videos supporting the instructional material presented. Adobe Captivate 7 gives opportunity for designers to create interactive media to help users gain a deeper understanding of the material. I would like to propose creating different interactive assessments and informational presentations to engage learners in a deeper level. My vision is to incorporate a variety of assessment options, which would keep the learner involved. Examples would include drag and drop assessments, multiple choice questions, fill in the blank, and matching. In terms of presenting the material, I feel it would be beneficial to incorporate pre-assessments throughout the lesson which would include drag and drop capabilities. This would give the user immediate feedback, in addition to utilizing images with rollover capabilities. After each section, the instructor will open the floor for a question and answer section. At the conclusion of the questionnaire session, the instructor will take the learners outside to give a real life example of what the instruction should be portraying. When appropriate, real life stories would be encouraged to show the severity of the material and that everything should be taken seriously.

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This procedure will help users understand what is expected of them on the job. Learning guidance will be provided in the form of an outline of the topics needing to be covered. Complex or more important topics will be given more time as opposed to topics that are easier to understand or comprehend. All content will be provided to learners in the form of illustrations, demonstrations, and samples.

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REFERENCES
Burns, C. M., Byler, L. I., Kiernan, N. E., & Sischo, W. M. (1997). Implementing a quality assurance program using a risk assessment tool on dairy operations. Journal of Dairy Science, 80(4), 777-787. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022030297759988 Connelly, L. (2013, October 10). Farm safety is about more than just tractors. Hoard's Dairyman. Dairy Australia. (2013). Health and safety risk management. Retrieved from http://www.thepeopleindairy.org.au/farm-policies-systems/health-and-safety-riskmanagement.htm Dairy Industry Safety Examined. (2013, September 12).Iowa Farmer Today, Retrieved from http://www.iowafarmertoday.com/news/dairy/dairy-industry-safetyexamined/article_1b276360-1afa-11e3-b475-0019bb2963f4.html Farlex, Inc. (2013). Types of testing. Retrieved from http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/cognitive test Health and Safety Authority. (2006, September). Farm safety code of practice. Retrieved from http://www.hsa.ie/eng/Publications_and_Forms/Publications/Agriculture_and_Forestry/C ode_of_Practice_-_Risk_Assessments.pdf Zenith Insurance Company. (2013). Establish a safety program. Retrieved from http://www.thezenith.com/employers/services/pi/safpro/page29806.html